Del Castillo revealed that Garcia told him years after the coup that “a close person informed him that he was the target of an assassination plot.”

“I am convinced that the (army) group which entered my house did so in order to physically eliminate Garcia” claimed Del Castillo who added that he received “information” from Susana Higuchi.[ed. Higuchi is the now-divorced wife of Fujimori.]

“That’s the information I received; she warned us of the threat via a liaison.” – [ed. Personal translation]

Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a measure backing the granting of political status to the Colombian FARC and ELN guerilla groups.The proposal’s text recognizes Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez’ declaration last week that the guerillas are "armies" and should be taken off international terrorist lists:

The Assembly agreed with the president’s position “by requesting that the Colombian government recognize the belligerent character of the insurgent movements…as a sign of good faith towards a political status that would create faith in future negotiations…” according to the approved text…

The legislators also rejected the existence of “unilateral lists imposed by the imperialist U.S. government and other colonizing countries which consider freedom movements and other insubordinate states as terrorist.” – [ed. Personal translation]

The Colombian government has yet to reply to the Assembly’s statement though a pair of political analysts interviewed by RCN said that the measure could lead to the FARC and ELN establishing “embassies” on Venezuelan soil.

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee signed a "No Amnesty" pledge touted by anti-immigrant groups.The former Arkansas governor added his signature to an oversized document where he promised that if elected president he would:

“fully implement measures that over time will lead to the attrition of our illegal immigrant population and…also pledge to make security of our borders top priority in my administration.”

Thursday, January 17, 2008

The following video is longer than the average YouTube clip but worth checking out.It is a video of a panel discussion held on Monday entitled “The Future of Immigration Reform in America.”The lecture may be dull at times, yet there are numerous interesting views presented about the immigration debate.

A Brazilian court indicted a U.S. couple on charges of sexually abusing children while at a nudist colony.The couple has been jailed since December and the indictment was extended to include a Brazilian couple and the parents of three boys who were allegedly abused.

"This sort of provisional government has done nothing to change the very bad situation of civil, political and economic rights that has exited in Cuba for more than four decades," the commission said, adding that authorities still deny freedom of expression, assembly and travel…

"Through its enormous repressive apparatus, the Cuban government continues to silence dissident voices and employs all forms of intimidation against militant opponents or ordinary citizen who speak out," the group said.

The head law enforcement officials of Mexico and the U.S. met yesterday in order to discuss issues like human trafficking and organized crime.U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora emphasized the need for greater cooperation between both countries and Mukasey announced the creation of a special database designed to stem the illegal arms from crossing the border.

"We're trying to deal with it. We've talked to the Mexicans about it, and they're trying to deal with it," Mr Mukasey said.

"What happens is that there is organised rock-throwing to divert border guards, who then become involved in whatever exchanges they're involved in, then you get a bunch of backpackers running across the border with backpacks full of marijuana," Mr Mukasey said.

Eagle Pass, Texas has lost in a round of fighting against a border fence. Yesterday the U.S. Justice Department ordered the border city to temporarily give up 233 acres of land (for 180 days), the first step in paving the road for a fence creating a physical barrier between that city and Mexico. The Feds had to sue the city for access because local landowners and politicos refused to handover the land. Right now, the land handover will allow government surveyors to begin assessing sites for construction of the fence.

There are hundreds of other lawsuits against other landowners in Texas, California, and Arizona who refuse to give up their lands to the Feds.

The DHS (Department of Homeland Security) is under a congressional mandate to have 670 miles of fencing in place by the end of the year to toughen security on the porous southwestern border. The plan calls for roughly 400 miles of new fencing that will be added to existing barriers.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The following is video taken from Brazil’s O Globo which showed Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva meeting with Fidel Castro on Tuesday in Havana. The news clip also included public comments made by Lula asserting that “Fidel Castro is lucid, healthy and ready to return."

Between 10 and 14 migrants have gone missing after their boat overturned in turbulent waters between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. A Coast Guard spokesman said that four survivors were found clinging to the capsized boat, yet two dead bodies were also located near the vessel.In addition, the Coast Guard said that most of the passengers were Cubans and Dominicans.

The Mona Passage is an 80-mile strait that separates the Dominican Republic from Puerto Rico.It’s a popular route for some migrants and is as an alternative to crossing the U.S.-Mexico border:

The migrants come through the highly traveled Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Over the last year, 4,300 illegal immigrants have been caught. [In 2006], almost 3,000 have been taken into custody. Most are Dominicans, but increasingly the migrants are Cubans — some 660 [in 2006]…No one knows for sure how many have died trying to cross the treacherous, 3000-foot deep channel, but it's estimated that as many as 10,000 people attempt to cross it every year.

An editorial in Wednesday’s Washington Post harshly criticized Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.Entitled “Ally to Kidnappers”, the editorial touched on several topics stemming from including Chavez’ suggestion to remove Colombia’s FARC guerillas from international terrorist lists.

On Chavez’ recent comments on the FARC:

In short, Mr. Chávez was endorsing groups dedicated to violence and other criminal behavior in a neighboring Latin American democracy, and associating his agenda with theirs…Latin American leaders who until now have seen in Mr. Chávez a crude populist who buys his friends with petrodollars are faced with something new: a head of state who has openly endorsed an organization of kidnappers and drug traffickers in a neighboring, democratic country.

On international support of Chavez:

Some in Washington, London and Madrid where kidnappings are rare, are happy to embrace Mr. Chávez -- former congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, for example, can be heard in radio advertisements touting his alliance with the Venezuelan leader. The FARC may think it can similarly find allies. Filmmaker Oliver Stone is already sold: He recently called the FARC "heroic."

On Colombia’s president:

The answer to this logic (by Stone and Kennedy) was provided by the press office of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who has been waging what is, in fact, a heroic battle against the brutal gangs that for decades have plagued his country. "The violent groups of Colombia are terrorists because they finance themselves through a business that is lethal to humanity: drug trafficking," the press office said.

So far, neither Chavez or the Venezuelan government has replied to the strongly-worded editorial.

Scientists discovered the fossil of a prehistoric rodent that may have been about ten feet long, nearly five feet tall and weighing 2000 pounds.Two Uruguayan paleontologists “stumbled upon the” fossil which would have belonged to the world’s biggest rodent.

"We can give an educated guess that the rodent would have been 3 meters long -- assuming that it was similar to a Capybara (the largest rodent alive today) and taking it into account that large mammals generally have relatively smaller heads. It's tail probably was closer to the one of capybara or guinea pig (very short) and not like a rat," Ernesto Blanco says.

It’s believed that the rodent, named Josephoartigasia monesi, was an herbivore and existed between two and four million years ago.

"The first cyberspace forum that is open and dedicated to bringing together honestly all knowledge about the Spanish language was born today," said Alex Grijelmo, president of the Spanish national news agency Efe, part of the foundation that created the site.

"Wikilengua aims to serve as a place for reflection on language, the grand instrument of human intelligence," Grijelmo said at the presentation.

Grijelmo may be on the right track; according to an Efe report, Wikilengua received roughly 35,000 hits within 24 hours after its public unveiling.

The Swiss take sausage seriously and a unique kind called Cervelat is the country’s most popular sausage.Yet Cervelat consumers in the alpine nation may face a shortage of their favorite meaty treat. Why?

A joint "task force cervelat" composed of scientists, bureaucrats and industry representatives has been convened to tackle the crisis caused by a shortfall in Brazilian cows' intestines used to encase the nation's favorite sausage, the Swiss meat association said…

But now the lightly smoked sausage has fallen victim to European Union restrictions on the import of cows intestines from Brazil because of fears over mad cow disease — bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

Swiss sausage makers are considering suppliers from other countries like Uruguay and Paraguay though they may not enough to cover the quantity that would come out of Brazil.With the possible windfall of selling sausages to droves of hungry tourists during the summer’s Euro 2008 soccer tournament, cervelat makers may have to rely on South America to save their industry.

Something to tide you over on what seems to be a slow LatAm news day...

Cuba will soon host a variety of visitors, including Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican secretary of state, who wants to meet with Raul Castro in February, and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who will speak with Raul Castro this week during his visit to the country.

Bertone is the Vatican's most senior member after the Pope. Reuters reports his trip is partially related to the timing: It's the tenth anniversary of the late Pope John Paul II's 1998 trip to Cuba.

The Brazilian president will "sign important agreements in areas of shared interest," according to the article on Granma International's Web site.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Keiko Fujimori could run for Peru’s next president after supporters of her father created a new political party.Ex-president Alberto Fujimori faces up to 30 years in jail over human rights abuses during his mandate, yet his backers hope that a new political faction would help clear his name:

"For seven years, some of the media and several political sectors have already sentenced Alberto Fujimori. It is important for us to show how much people support him and we will do it with democratic weapons," said Congresswoman Keiko Fujimori, Alberto Fujimori's daughter..."We are going to collect one million signatures throughout the next year and prove that people do not agree with the lynching of Alberto Fujimori that is taking place," affirmed Keiko.

The massive backlog of immigration applications in the U.S. has affected different groups such as those who want to gain citizenship before November’s elections and people who hurriedly filed their paperwork before a fee increase last year.

In order to try to lessen the load of the millions of applications, the Bush administration approved an “emergency plan” last week.The program would involve rehiring several hundred retired government workers to cut the delay.However, according to one immigration official in an Associated Press article:

Linda Springer, director of the Office of Personnel Management, said Citizenship and Immigration Services estimates it needs 2,500 additional employees over the next few months to meet workload demands.

Though a quick fix is certainly better than nothing, much more will need to be done soon to diminish delays.

Image- MSNBC (“People line up outside the Immigration and Naturalization Service office in Detroit in Jan. 2002”)

The BBC has signed a license deal with a Chilean television network so that the South American country can produce its own version of “The Office.” Though the show has been remade in countries like the U.S. and Germany, the Chilean adaptation will be the first to be done in Spanish and by a Latin American country.

The governments of Brazil and Cuba are planning to sign several agreements this week during Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s visit to the island.One of the main pacts would allow Brazilian energy giant Petrobras to search for oil in Cuban waters.

Lula’s visit to Cuba is designed to strengthen economic ties between Brazil and Cuba that have grown closer since he became president:

Higher growth rates have led to a surge in imports into Cuba, which almost tripled to $8.92 billion between 2002 and 2006, according to the Brazilian Foreign Affairs Ministry. Cuba's trade deficit widened to $6.35 billion in 2006 from $1.49 billion in 2002.

Brazilian exports to Cuba increased almost fivefold in the same period, reaching $343.8 million in 2006, the Brazilian Trade Ministry said, or about 0.2 percent of Brazil's total exports. Brazil's main exports to Cuba are electrical equipment, sugar, candy and meat products.

Three days after being freed from her captors in the Colombian jungle, Clara Rojas was reunited with her three-year-old son, Emmanuel.The following video was taken from the Colombian news last night and shows a precocious Emmanuel with her overjoyed mother:

The aftermath of last Thursday’s rescue operation has not been without controversy, unfortunately.Several politicos viewed unfavorably the sympathetic comments made by Venezuelan representative Ramón Rodriguez Chacín to the FARC guerillas during the handover.Even more controversial was a speech made by Hugo Chavez on Saturday calling for Colombia’s main rebel groups to be labeled as “armies” and not as terrorists.